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Welcome to the Day of Rest. If you’re reading this, you’ve survived Black Thursday (Wait a second ... didn’t that used to be called Thanksgiving?); Black Friday and Small Business Saturday with just enough time to take a breather before The Bargain Advocate’s ideal shopping holiday: Cyber Monday.

If none of the above are your scene — with the possible exception of Thanksgiving, which somehow unintentionally launched this whole mess to begin with — please don’t feel obligated to follow along. The Bargain Advocate hopes you have finished making your homemade turkey stock and frozen enough leftovers to last you well into 2015.

You also may consider mailing me your leftover pumpkin pie, with or without whipped cream.

If you’re curious about Cyber Monday, stay with me. This is a “holiday” perfect for folks who prefer to lounge around in sweats with unkempt hair, drinking coffee and occasionally lifting a finger to type in a new URL.

It sounds lazy — OK, it is lazy — but if you want to be super-smart about Cyber Monday, you can’t be as lazy as you might think. So to give you an edge on the deal-hunting, the Bargain Advocate would like to share with you some valuable tips.

Before Cyber Monday

• Set a budget and decide if there’s something — or someone — specific you’re shopping for. If you’re using Cyber Monday to accomplish some or all of your Christmas shopping for other people, don’t let that offer for “75 percent off Super-Fancy Rainbow Moon Boots — This Season’s Fashion Must-Have” persuade you to buy them for yourself ... because not only will you have wasted $238 (minus shipping) on a Halloween costume masquerading as a fashion statement, you will have blown the funds you could have devoted to Cousin Susie and Great-Aunt Mildred.

Or worse, your mother.

Or worse, your kids.

Know how much you have to spend and who you’re spending it on. Don’t go over that amount.

• Sign up for emails and deal alerts from retailers you’ve targeted. Say you know you’ll be shopping at bootsgalore.com for your entire family this year. Get onto the website and check to see if you’ll get a certain percentage discount for signing up for BootsGalore email updates. If possible, apply that discount to your Cyber Monday purchases.

If you haven’t already, set up a “junk email” account that you can use for these sorts of promotional alerts. That way you’re not clogging your regular inbox.

On Cyber Monday

• Unfortunately, even on Cyber Monday, the early bird gets the worm. At least you can do your shopping from bed. In some instances, you may even be able to preload your virtual shopping cart so that you can “check out” as soon as the clock strikes midnight. Or 12:01.

• Follow security precautions. Don’t input credit card information to a site that is not secure — you’ll know if it’s secure because the URL will begin with “https.”

• Before you make a purchase, search the web to make sure you’re getting the best deal. Sites like pricegrabber.com and thefind.com do the comparisons for you — just type in the item you’re looking for (for example, “Rainbow Moon Boots”) and the sites will pull up the same or similar items available from other websites, along with their prices.

• Look for coupons, promo codes and free shipping codes. Before you check out, do a quick search for “[Insert store here] promo codes” — for example “BootsGalore promo codes” — to see if there are any additional discounts to be had. Retailmenot.com is usually a good one for this.

• Defer to the experts. If this all seems overwhelming and you need some help navigating the deals, sites like cybermonday.com and bradsdeals.com will be running play-by-play updates on Cyber Monday, featuring some of the best bargains as picked by their staff. Website DealNews already has picked a few potential sites for hot deals based on last year’s Cyber Monday sales: Among them, Home Depot, Google Play (last year it gave away a selection of free mp3s) and 6pm (a good one for shoes — maybe even moon boots).

• Scan social media for deals. If you’re a Tweeter, follow the hashtag #CyberMonday for the latest deals and updates. Feel free to contribute to the conversation when you score massive savings, of course giving a shout-out to @BargainAdvocate.

• Be familiar with return and exchange policies. Check the fine print to be sure you won’t be stuck paying an exorbitant amount for return shipping or be stuck with a pair of ill-fitting moon boots for life. Be sure to save your e-receipts and/or take a screenshot of your confirmation numbers (you also could be old-fashioned about it and write them down) so you have proof of your purchase.

Most of all, enjoy shopping in your sweats and bunny slippers. Drink an extra cup o’ joe for me while you nab the best remaining deals of 2014.

If you have insight about a frugal living topic or an idea for a future column, please email me at amroy@nncogannett.com. I’d love to hear from you!